Extra Points

Buccaneers Fire Defensive Coordinator Mike Smith

The Buccaneers have fired defensive coordinator Mike Smith. The move comes after Tampa Bay has lost their last three games by a combined score of 66-112.

Tampa Bay has allowed 34.6 points per game this season, the most in the NFL. Their 173 points allowed in their first five games are the most since the New York Giants allowed 182 back in 2013, and only six teams have gotten off to a worse defensive start since the merger. They rank dead last in defensive DVOA, defensive DAVE and pass defense DVOA. They also finished 32nd in defensive DVOA in 2017.

Other than that, things have been going fine.

Smith will be replaced by linebackers coach Mark Duffner, who previously served as defensive coordinator for the Bengals from 2001-2002.

Comments

You know how KC's atrocious defense has been the talk of the NFL this year? Tampa's defensive DVOA is more than double theirs! So yeah, they've been really bad.

When Mike Smith was head coach of the Falcons and he failed on a couple of 4th down conversion attempts in a playoff loss against the Giants and it just ruined him for fourth down aggression. He went from being a fairly aggressive head coach to a John Fox-level kicking enthusiast just like that. Anyways, I guess what I'm trying to say is that he was a bad head coach and then an even worse defensive coordinator. RIP Mike Smith.

Smith got a pretty good reputation from how quickly he turned the Falcons around back in '08, but it turns out almost all of that turnaround was due to not only getting a franchise QB, but getting a franchise QB that was good right out of the gate.

Back then, the conventional wisdom was that the Falcons' turnaround was due to 3 things: drafting Matt Ryan, signing Michael Turner, and hiring Mike Smith. In hindsight, it's obvious that Ryan, and even Turner, had a lot more to do with it than Smith did.